I was always of the opinion that most large publishing houses had a thing against libraries. They seem to act as if libraries were taking money out of their pockets when it’s not true. When I was growing up, I learned about a lot of good books in my local library. I ended up buying most of those books and exploring other books by the authors I liked. In short, my local library encouraged me to read and seek out more books which put money into the publusher’s pockets. If I was a publisher, I would be more supportive of libraries. It’s not like the publishers are donating the books to the libaries. Many of the books are brought and paid for. When they aren’t, the publishers get to write it off as a tax deduction. In other words, not only are their books getting exposure, they are also getting paid by the libraries.

I didn’t think too much about this until Sandy DeTaranto pointed me in the direction of this great article, The Truth About the Price of Books. It makes a lot of good points, some of which I agree with.